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﻿Madhya Pradesh (Dantewada and Konta) and Orissa (Gunupur and Par- akhemundi). Two more projects, Keon- jhar and Balliguda, both in Orissa, were taken up in 1973-74 and all the eight projects continued upto to the end of the Fifth Plan, viz, 1978-79. The projects were meant to run for a limited period, during which the specified objectives in each project were to be achieved, The Advance Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year 1978-79 reviews these projects and uncovers a variety of financial and administrative irregularities in their working. While the Report does not actually charge that funds meant for tribal developments were in some cases simply defalcated, such a conclusion is inescapable from a plain consideration of the facts and figures presented. Of the total grants of Rs 17.38 crore released by the government to the TDAs from their inception up to March 1979, the TDA accounts showed that Rs 16.66 crore had been 'spent', though the necessary 'utilisation certificates' that should have been given by the various departments and other bodies of the respective state governments entrusted with the task of actually executing the projects were available only for Rs 14.63 crore. For instance the development agency at Balliguda, Orissa, furnished utilisation certificates for the entire amount shown in its books as expenditure even though according to its own records, it had not received utilisation certificates for its 20.45 lakhs from the executing agencies.

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